let's discuss!

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

this if for those of you who read fanfic, which is hopefully most of you.

what are your fanfic pet peeves? is there a pairing or genre you won't read? do you hate mistakes in canon?

for me it's more about grammar. i get irritated with bad spelling (use spellcheck!), poor use of punctuation (besides commas because there are about 40 rules. you should know the basics), and capitalization. in posts i don't bother with caps. but when i publish i try to make it as correct as possible.

other things are the use of certain words. there/their/they're, we're/ were/where, bare/bear, lie/lay/laid etc., i/me, overuse of italics and bold. to me italics are good for emphasizing certain words that should be stressed, either in dialog or narration, sounds coming off the television/phone or written words read by the narrator or out loud in dialog, musical lyrics. it just makes it easier to understand that it isn't normal sounds. i only use bold in my author's note, disclaimer, and warnings.

also, i won't even read a fic that has all the text bunched up because someone didn't press enter. or something with only about 200 words.

also, when you address someone it should be like,   Person, blah blah. with the comma there. that just bugs me.

for specifically CM i won't read Morgan with anyone but Garcia. i don't know, i just think they belong together and i love that Garcia is one of very few average sized women on television. in spite of what hollywood wants us to think, most women are more Garcia's size than JJ's.

Comments

[alyssa22.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling. It drives me nuts.

Sadly, the average person isn't that good with grammar. I've even seen someone on this post complaining about "grammer". And this is someone who THINKS they know how it should be done.

Frightful.

The education standard these days is appalling. I think that people who learn English as a second language have a much better grasp of spelling and grammar than most native English speakers. At least they generally know the difference between their/there/they're and were/we're/where.

[paksenarrion2.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I admit that sometimes when I am in a hurry, I don't proof read what I post in response and can misuse things like to/too/two (although generally it is between to and too-mainly I use to instead of too-more of a typo really) even though I know the difference. But at work? Very different. I make sure I proof read my emails before they get sent (Since spell check doesn't catch things like to/too/two, etc). I also have spell check set as well. Too bad this isn't a requirement for all business communication as well as fan fiction.